


Sleep and Snow and Sex

by orphan_account



Series: Collection of short fics [12]
Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Domestic Fluff, Established Relationship, Fluff, M/M, Snow Day
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-31
Updated: 2013-01-31
Packaged: 2017-12-22 12:26:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,158
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/913200
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Does what it says on the tin.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sleep and Snow and Sex

**Author's Note:**

  * For [suchgreatheights](https://archiveofourown.org/users/suchgreatheights/gifts).



> Birthday gift for Stephanie, set during the snow days we had in the UK this year. (Written January 31st 2013)

The world was blinding white. Merlin groaned and squeezed his eyes shut a little tighter, pushing his head into the pillow and praying for darkness. He wasn’t ready to wake up yet - five more minutes, three more hours, whatever. He just needed more time.

Just as Merlin had managed to dig his face far enough into the bed to block out any sliver of light, there was a loud, dull frrrping sound to his left, far too grating and angry to ignore. Merlin groaned again, louder, curling his hands up from his sides and pushing them under his pillow, bending it up around his head to cover his ears. The sound - it was his phone vibrating on the bedside table - hardly dimmed at all and, Merlin realised belatedly, he couldn’t breathe anymore.

Frustration mounting, Merlin shuffled to the edge of the bed and reached out blindly, smacking his hand down over and over on the bedside table, trying to find his phone without opening his eyes. After an embarrassingly long period of patting the table, his fingers finally closed around the cold, flat shape of his phone and he fumbled it into his grip, turning his head out of the warm, dark bliss of the pillow and cracking an eye open to glare blearily at the screen.

The combination of bright white sheets reflecting the pale light which was flooding into the room from the snow-covered world outside and the suddenness of the blinding square of light from his phone screen did very little for Merlin’s retinas. He grunted, distressed and pained by the stinging in his eyes, and blinked until he could focus on the text a few inches from his nose.

It was Arthur. Of course it was Arthur, the clock read 9:27AM and Merlin still had half his face buried in a pillow.

“You’re late for work,” the text read. Just as Merlin’s brain managed to process the words, another message buzzed through: “Get your arse here. Now.”

The thought of getting up made Merlin’s stomach twist unhappily. He lifted his head a few inches off the pillow, sucking in a sharp breath at the way his neck clicked but carrying on, trying to squint out of the window above the headboard. After blinking a few times, Merlin managed to clear the sleep from his eyes enough to just about make out some definition between the grey sky and the block of flats across the road. When he squinted, Merlin could see flakes of white floating down against the deep red bricks opposite.

“Can’t,” he typed dopily into his phone, letting his head flop back down onto the pillow. “Snowed in.”

As soon as he had hit send, Merlin dropped his phone onto the mattress beside him and sunk back into the bed with a happy sigh. He wriggled down a little and pulled the duvet up and over his bare back and shoulders, wrapping it around him and tucking it under his chin to hold it in place.

The bliss only lasted a minute or two. This time, Arthur phoned him.

Staring at the flashing screen, Merlin thought the ‘ignore’ button looked particularly tempting. He resisted, knowing Arthur would never believe that he had mysteriously lost his signal, and answered with a muffled groan of protest.

“What?” he said, holding his phone to his ear with one hand and supporting his head with the other, since his neck didn’t seem to be quite up to the job yet.

“Get up, you lazy tart,” came Arthur’s response, slick and warm and far too eloquent for a snowy morning. “I don’t know what you think I’m paying you for but it definitely isn’t this.”

“Definitely?” Merlin asked, somehow working a flirtatious lilt into his otherwise sleepy slur.

“Definitely,” Arthur said, and Merlin could hear him banging around in his kitchen through the phone and - God, why?  “I pay you to arrive at work on time, to make my coffee, to organise my diary and generally be a competent PA. I don’t pay you to sleep naked until mid morning and pretend to be snowed in.”

“But Arrrthur,” Merlin moaned, rolling over onto his back and groaning. He stretched his limbs out into a large, scrawny starfish and listened to the satisfying click of his muscles as they slotted back into place.

“Not buts,” Arthur said at once, his voice clipped. “Except yours out of bed. I’ll be expecting you, blizzard or not.”

And with that Arthur hung up. Merlin rolled his eyes and stretched a little more, feeling the rush of cold air beneath his bare feet when they finally poked out from under the duvet and dangled over the edge of the bed. There wasn’t much point fighting it. If Merlin wasn’t up and in Arthur’s kitchen making him coffee very soon then Arthur would just keep calling him until Merlin threw his phone at the wall in frustration - and last time that had happened, he’d found out it wasn’t covered by personal expenses.

Merlin slithered out of bed, keeping the duvet wrapped around himself for as long as possible and cursing when he was finally forced to drop it onto the bed. The bedroom wasn’t cold but there was a winter chill in the air from the winds whipping passed the window and it made Merlin’s nipples stiffen uncomfortably quickly. He folded his arms across his chest and made a disgruntled sound, then bent down to pull on last night’s boxers.

Two steps along the tiled corridor had Merlin swearing and rushing back into the carpeted bedroom, fumbling around under the bed for some socks - mismatched but he didn’t care, it was early and cold and he was snowed in, no matter what Arthur said - and tugging them onto his feet. The socks helped a little with the cold as Merlin padded across the sitting room and rounded the corner into the kitchen.

Arthur was humming to himself, sitting at the breakfast bar with a plate of toast and a few reports scattered around him. He was wearing a t-shirt, boxers, slippers and his dressing gown and Merlin scowled at him and made a mental note to insist that they slept over at hisapartment next time, where he had some clothes of his own and didn’t have to walk around half naked.

“There you are,” Arthur said, glancing up at him. “Took your sweet time this morning, eh?”

Merlin pinched Arthur’s arm as he walked passed him, eyes fixed on the kettle.

“The commute was terrible,” he replied, pulling two mugs out of the cupboard and setting the kettle to boil. “Snow’s shutting everything down - roads closed, trains cancelled, buses overturned. It’s a miracle I managed to get here at all.”

“Oh, I’m sure,” Arthur drawled, his smirk obvious in the tone of his voice. “Now where’s my coffee?”

“You mean this one?” Merlin asked, plopping Arthur’s favourite mug in front of him, filled to the brim with steaming hot black coffee. “You know, I would actually do it for you without being asked if you weren’t always such a twat about it.”

Arthur smiled at up at Merlin and pulled him in by the waist, pressing his nose to Merlin’s ribs for a split second and kissing the warm, soft skin there. “Now Merlin,” he said once he’d let go, his voice as level and calm as if he were explaining a business contract. “I’ve learnt that you can never expect too little from your PA. Constant vigilance, that’s the key. Always ask, always remind.”

That made Merlin snort. He leant over and kissed Arthur’s hair then slid onto the stool on the opposite side of the breakfast bar, sipping at his own coffee and looking at Arthur with what he hoped was an unimpressed expression. He felt a little exposed, undressed as he was.

“Probably true,” he conceded. “But you can never expect too much from your boyfriend. Especially the morning after you suck his brains out through his dick. That kind of attention deserves a little coffee, wouldn’t you say?”

Arthur nodded, his eyes flicking over Merlin’s bare chest. “I would,” he said. “But I think you’re forgetting who my boyfriend is, Merlin. He doesn’t get up before lunchtime unless he’s dragged out of bed by the ankles and he’s even worse after a night of tremendous orgasms and debauchery.”

Merlin flushed, biting his lip and looking down at his hands where they were wrapped around his mug of coffee. If Arthur hadn’t said that with such an obvious dare in his eyes then Merlin would probably have just leant over and smacked him, but instead his stomach was twisting with excitement and embarrassment he could feel heat prickling at the back of his neck.

When Arthur abruptly put down his coffee and stood up, circling the breakfast bar until he was standing directly behind Merlin, the bubble of anticipation which boiled up from deep in Merlin’s stomach made his lips part in shock. Arthur started rubbing his hands up and down Merlin’s ribs, dipping the gentle touch just into his waist and making Merlin shiver.

“I do love him, though,” Arthur whispered, his mouth suddenly pressed to Merlin’s ear and his stubble scratching against Merlin’s neck.

“You do?” Merlin said, cursing himself for the way his voice quivered, and he felt Arthur smile against his skin.

“I do,” he said, sucking Merlin’s earlobe between his lips and nipping softly at it. Arthur waited until the feeling made Merlin gasp, then moved on to suck kisses down his neck and latch onto the skin just above his shoulder blade, trying to pull a bruise up from the skin with the press of his tongue and teeth.

Merlin hissed and leant back into Arthur’s touch, letting his eyes drift shut and his hands drop away from his coffee. Merlin pressed his palms to the cold marble edge of the breakfast bar and tried to push his stool out but Arthur was pressing in too tight behind him.

“Let me up,” Merlin muttered, his voice hitching with sharp little gasps when Arthur decided to wind his arms around Merlin’s chest and brush his thumbs over Merlin’s nipples. “Shit- Arthur. Arthur, let me up.”

There was a moment when Merlin thought Arthur was going to ignore him and keep licking and sucking across his skin, tickling him with unfairly light fingers and driving Merlin to the edge of madness (like that one time in Arthur’s office before a big investment meeting, when Arthur had insisted that the only way to calm his nerves was to watch Merlin come from nothing but Arthur drawing soft circles on his hips with the pads of his thumbs and biting at Merlin’s bottom lip) but then Arthur hummed into one of his kisses and pulled back, giving Merlin room to tumble out of the stool and turn to launch himself at Arthur.

They kissed desperately. Merlin opened his mouth wide and Arthur followed suit, letting Merlin push his tongue passed his lips to explore his mouth, running it along the back of Arthur’s teeth and curling it along Arthur’s own tongue with a contented moan. Merlin wrapped his arms around Arthur’s neck and pulled their bodies closer together, stepping up onto his tip toes just to make sure he could press a little more of his chest against Arthur’s.

Arthur grinned against Merlin’s lips and bracketed Merlin’s waist with his hands, pushing Merlin down and back a little so that the two of them didn’t topple over and end up in a heap on the floor. Naturally, all Merlin could think to do in response was to unwind one of his arms from around Arthur neck and reach down to cup his cock through his boxers, huffing out a breathless laugh when Arthur groaned and bucked forwards.

“You probably could’ve expected this,” Merlin mumbled, rubbing his thumb over the damp patch of cotton at the tip of Arthur’s cock. “If not the coffee as well.”

The panting breaths Arthur was puffing against Merlin’s cheek calmed a little as he chuckled, then Arthur kissed the stubble at Merlin’s jawline and pushed into his touch again.

“One thing,” he said, the thin rasp of his voice making Merlin’s cock throb. “One thing, Merlin.”

“What?” Merlin said, sliding his fingers beneath the waistband of Arthur’s boxers.

“Please- Please don’t make me come while you’ve got those socks on.”

Merlin glanced down at his mismatched socks - one of them his own deep blue and the other Arthur’s striped maroon - and smirked. He kissed Arthur on the lips again and met his glazed stare.

“No, I think I will,” he said, wrapping his fingers around Arthur’s cock and tugging once, slowly. “After all, you made me get up when it was snowing.”

Arthur groaned, half in frustration and half in lust, but Merlin kissed him again before he could say anything else.


End file.
